Happy Birthday R.E.M. April 5th, 1980, marked the first time Bill, Peter, Mike, and Michael played in public and here we are in the years (see historical links just below). . . well done guys and we only hope for many more years of friendship, fun and music!
athensmusic.net (from the band’s 25th anniversary)
To commemorate the occasion, we thought it would be fun to highlight some recent changes in the video viewing of R.E.M. on the internet. As many of you are probably aware, official Warner years R.E.M. videos have disappeared from You Tube due to a high-level battle over business terms between You Tube/Google and Warner Music. As the old African proverb goes: Wapiganapo tembo nyasi huumia (Swahili). When elephants fight the grass gets hurt (English). And as Neil Young recently wrote on his website, it is a fight worth fighting over the principle of fair artists compensation. While we all hope for a prompt resolution of the dispute so that R.E.M.’s music and videos can be restored to You Tube, you will be interested to know that even today there is actually a good bit of R.E.M. up there. For instance, check these out:
R.E.M. Live Video:
Assorted rarities at You Tube compiled by
And…
Takeaway Shows by Vincent Moon at LaBlogotheque
R.E.M. Doing Covers:
And…
Bands covering R.E.M.::
Editors “Orange Crush”:
The Fray “The Great Beyond”:
Siberian Fastfood “Man on the Moon”:
Also, we have recently enhanced and expanded the coverage of R.E.M. videos on MyspaceMusic. There is also the old-standby at remhq.com: our HQTV player where many R.E.M. videos can be found. Visits to these destinations now yield most of the band’s full-length video clips plus some fan-favorite “other” footage lovingly collected over the years.
So Happy Anniversary guys, and happy viewing everybody– here’s to R.E.M.’s pretty amazing body of work from 1980 and going strong– Let’s hope the best is yet to come!